A Noble Woman
by ifeelmad
Summary: A retelling of Disney's Frozen, beginning with the birth of Elsa and her parents' memories of the past.
1. Adgar and Iduna

The kingdom of Arendelle was one vast expanse of blue water, scattered with patches of green land from which the roofs of houses, clustered together, and the pointed peaks of tall, round buildings rose up, reaching for the sky. Mountains, rugged, icy blue and stony grey, surrounded that great sheet of island-dotted water.

The largest and most beautiful building, the royal palace, stood above and apart from the others. It was as grey as the mountains against which it was situated, with more than four towers, and each tower was capped with a round roof of pine green color, while the main roof of the palace, as well as the canopy above the entrance, was a beautiful purple-grey. It was a handsome, benevolent-looking place, home to Queen Iduna, daughter of the Lord Baron of Levitton, and King Agdar.

It was an hour after sunrise, several hours after the delivery of the baby girl who would inherit Iduna as queen of Arendelle. The little royal family, the young king, his bride and the newborn princess, were together in the bedchamber in which Iduna had given birth. Iduna lay propped up against a row of headcushions, the tiny bundle of pink lace and fair hair in her arms, with Adgar's arm about her.

She pressed her daughter to her bosom, as she must have done a thousand times that day. Then, at long last, she glanced up into the face of her husband, read the eagerness and impatience in his face, and, with a self-deprecatory smile, surrendered the baby to him.

"There you are, beloved." As always, her voice was soft, as delicate as if it were made of glass, though there was some hoarseness. "You've waited for this all morning. I'm sorry."

Wordlessly, Adgar took the baby into the crook of his arm. He gazed into that little lily of a face, traced each feature with a thumb.

Somehow this little girl had not inherited the yellow-brown hair of her father, nor was she born a brunette, as her mother was. She had been born with a head full of thick, lustrous golden-white hair - hair that looked, somehow, as if it had been spun of gold and silver, sunlight and moonlight, all at once. But her skin was as smooth and as soft as satin, and she had inherited his complexion - very fair, with a rose-like hue.

He studied those tiny pink lips, their shape, the way that they were aligned, and could see that she would be blessed with the same regal beauty, the same quiet, serene, radiant blooming-of-a-flower smile that her mother had.

Iduna touched her husband's shoulder.

"Look, dearheart," she whispered. "Those eyes. Where did she get those eyes?"  
Adgar had no answer for her. His daughter, who was wide awake, had indeed been gifted with enormous laughing blue eyes - as light and bright and blue as the glassy mountainsides. And, like the mountainsides, they reflected the light of the sun as it drifted in through the window, past the parted curtains.

But far more than that, these bright, impish eyes seemed to reflect the very warmth of the sun, to reflect all that makes the sun much more than the lantern of the earth, all that gives it the power to bring merriment to the heart, youthfulness and delight to the soul.

Though Adgar was only twenty-three years of age, and Iduna was not yet twenty, they were badly in need of the spirit-lifting, heart-lightening magic that sunshine worked on the souls of those who opened them up to its influence.

For, up unto this day, the royal palace had been a majestically beautiful place, but staid and quiet and somewhat detached - handsome, elegant, benevolent, and yet aloof from all the rest of that hustling, bustling, sociable city. It had a great deal in common with its ruling lady. Inside, the walls of its halls and its chambers were all draped with curtains of crimson and wine-colored velvet - all dark hues, rich, beautiful and uncompromisingly regal - and strewn with gold cord. There was nothing whimsical, nothing sweetly charming or cheerful in the interior design or in the atmosphere. Its inhabitants, from the lowliest scullery maid to the king, operated and interacted on a basis of efficiency and unfaltering formality. Every man and woman did his or her duty and was concerned with nothing more, adhering strictly to etiquette, and no one so much as knocked at the doors of the massive walls that separated king from courtier and maid from marquis.

It was because of Queen Iduna, who, even in girlhood, had been known for being quiet, soft-spoken, seemingly self-possessed, and reticent in the extreme. Dignified to a fault both in public and in private, she had never done anything unusual, unconventional or exciting - had never done anything to make herself the center of a scandal or the subject of a round of gossip, a form of entertainment to which many nobleladies of all ages were given, but in which she seldom took part. Most of those who knew her dismissed her as bashful. In truth, she was secretly, fiercely proud of the aloofness for which she was known and the aura of dignified, benevolent detachment that she had cultivated over the years.

"I've achieved nothing else," she had often told herself, in the days before she had exchanged vows and hearts with Adgar, "I've no special talents to speak of, no wealth or status, and I'm too afraid to act as Annemarie and Helene do. Why shouldn't I put my efforts into being graceful and quiet and above it all? Everyone believes I'm soft and shy . . .and noone will ever know how prideful I really am."

She was the youngest of five girls, herself, Catherine, Helene, Annemarie and Lice, and every one of her sisters outshone her in beauty, and made up for what they lacked in wealth and high status with their boldness, vivacity and talent, save for Helene, the middle sister. A pox she had contracted after a visit to another land had thinned her hair, made her skin sallow and robbed her of her eyesight when she was six years of age. As a young woman, however, she had learned to read and write Braille, was becoming famous for her poetry, and was expected to become Arendelle's Mrs. Barrett Browning.

Catherine had excelled academically and was known for her radiant beauty, her vast knowledge where books and news were concerned, and her sharp wit. Lice was a singer, and Annemarie was a painter. In public, these three girls never failed to shock, charm or amuse, and therefore were very often the center of attention.

Iduna did well academically, but excelled at nothing and had no special talents to speak of. She was not an entertaining or captivating personage. Nor was she a particularly valuable prospect for marriage, for her father was not very wealthy, she would not have a large inheritance, and she could not compete with her lively, incandescently beautiful, fearless and talented sisters. She had given up all efforts to compete with them before she had reached adolescence. She was aware of her limits, and believed she would be a fool to expect to be pursued - by suitors for marriage, by her peers for friendship, or by her parents, who were also aware of all of the ways in which she fell short when compared to her sisters. And so, while Lice and Helene could boast of their poetry and their singing, Iduna continued to project an image of perfect grace and lofty untouchability to all who saw her. To all of those whom she felt would never deign to pursue her, as well as to those who perhaps might have pursued her, she strove to appear to stand just an inch or two above it all.

As for Adgar, before his marriage to Iduna and his coronation, he had been considerably more carefree. In love with fun and with people, the young prince had been the very life of every party or ball, often sending his guests into gales of helpless laughter. He was fond of dancing, foolish, funny dances; he played stringed instruments, and sometimes shamelessly serenaded lords and ladies despite his utter lack of singing talent. He had delighted in stallions, in fast riding, and trekked up the mountains of Arendelle as often as his father would allow him. Far more than all that, though, he was always ready with a smile, a kind or witty word to soothe a troubled heart, even when he himself was troubled. It was said that he had the most wonderful smile - gentle and solicitous, a smile that radiated from his deep brown eyes and somehow made him seem a completely different man, a graver and wiser and more tender soul, despite his youth. He was quick to offer a helping hand or try to lift a sagging spirit, even by making a complete fool of himself, as his despairing mother called it.

As you might expect, Adgar had never enjoyed the company of taciturn, detached individuals. And yet, when Iduna had come to the palace to attend a ball for the first time, he had spied her, standing a little distance off from the lovely Catherine and a handsome young duke with whom she was exchanging archly humorous, flirtatious verbal darts.

Yes - Adgar remembered this day vividly, and Iduna recalled it just as well, and, as their eyes met over the head of the little cherub they had brought into the world only hours before, all of the memories, that long night of dancing and timid caressing of cheeks, each one breathing in the sweet aroma of the perfume in the other's hair, drinking in the beauty of the moonlight with their eyes, came flooding back.

Before this day, he had never laid eyes upon her - a girl of medium height, brown-haired, pink as a lily, attired in a conservative gown of blue velvet. She kept her hands folded before her and her great green eyes straight ahead of her; her gaze almost never wandered, till Adgar began to suspect that she was blind. The corners of her lips were upturned slightly, but they seldom moved unless she was spoken to, and then she parted them a fraction to grace the speaker with a few words in response, then closed them once again, upturned them at the corners in that tiny smile.  
Then - then she had glanced up, locked eyes with him for a moment. Without a thought, Adgar had smiled at her. Her pretty face, as small and as pink as a rosebud, and, a moment before, just as tightly closed up, seemed to burst into bloom.

She appeared as calm and poised as ever, and yet, when she blinked those huge, soft eyes at him, he was certain that he detected a tenderness, a sadness in their depths. She was lovely, soft, sweet-faced, yet so withdrawn, and somehow fragile. Some unseen being - if not Iduna herself, with those eyes that seemed to cry out for love without realizing that they cried - called for him to draw closer, to take the tiny gloved hand and lead its owner to the dance floor, and later, outdoors, into the starlight.


	2. Elsa Edel Kvinne

For Iduna's part - well, she had never seen anyone quite like him, though, owing to the popularity of her sisters, as well as to her own beauty, which had attracted a number of suitors before her aloofness had turned their attentions to her sisters as well, she had seen many handsome charmers before. It was his smile - the smile that had never failed to endear him to any woman or man who saw it, for, with its warmth, it spoke of a desire to know her, whosoever she might be, and with its gentle kindness, its solicitousness, it asked to know what was troubling her just as it offered to set it right. Because of those eyes, his face was, to her, nothing less than the face of angel.

Iduna had remembered herself after several moments, had glanced away, turned away. But Adgar had sought her, relentlessly, but always sweetly, gradually drawing her into conversation with his persistence, after many failed efforts, requesting dances, continuing to hold her hand or her arm for a while after the end of each waltz. Yes, he pursued her, though Iduna never quite believed it or cake to terms with the reality of it till the day she went with him to the marriage altar.

And as they had exchanged vows as well as hearts, each of the newlyweds had each exchanged a bit of him or herself for a bit of the other, or, more accurately, each had given up a bit of himself, wordlessly and without request, for the sake of the other with whom life would be shared from this day onward. Adgar had begun to strive to be a more sober and efficient king, though perhaps this sobriety and efficiency became excessive over time. As for Iduna, it was no simple task for her to shed the mantle of "aboveness" and "pridefulness" that she had worn for so long, or to rid herself of the reticence that had become a part of her character, but for Adgar's sake, she made valiant efforts, though they yielded small successes.

But now, as they gazed together upon the face of their fair-haired little beloved, smiling drowsily up at them, it was as if a fairy had stolen into the palace, past the stolid, steely-eyed guards and the iron shutters, to deliver to them a ray of sunshine of their own, brighten every corner of their abode and transform it into a haven of laughter and joy.

"Her name will be Elsa," Iduna declared unexpectedly.

A line appeared between Adgar's brows. "Elsa? Why Elsa, my love?"  
He had wanted to name the child Anna, which meant "favored," in the event that it was a girl, for this child WOULD favored. He was determined, as all new fathers were, that HIS child would receive the best upbringing that he could give her. No queen in the history of Arendelle would be stronger-minded, cleverer, more selfless, more charitable, more courageous than his firstborn princess. Before this day, Iduna had deferred to him, as she usually did.

Iduna, still flushed from the rigors of childbirth, sank back against an array of headcushions. Her eyes were soft, dark and lustrous, surrounded though they were by faint dark rings, shadows of exhaustion and exertion.

"Because she will be joyful, lighthearted, as you were when we first met - I know that she will. And I hope that she will be noble - graceful, filled with pride - but with a good pride, a virtuous pride . . .as I have always . . .longed to be . . .as I always ought to have been."

By this time, the baby's great blue eyes had closed, as she had fallen asleep. Adgar laid her at the foot of the bed, as carefully as if he were returning a rare and precious stone into its box. Then, going over to where his wife lay, he knelt at the bedside, taking one small white hand into his.  
"My angel, you have always been graceful, gracious and noble, and you will remain beautiful and noble forever. I do not know how to make you understand - but till the day you die, you will be my vakker jente, my edel kvinne, my Iduna."  
He received no reply, except for the sound of slow, soft breathing. Idun, like her baby daughter, had fallen asleep.

Lifting her hand, Adgar pressed it to his lips. He rose, then, and quietly departed the room.


	3. Magic in Arendelle

The worries began for Adgar and Iduna the very night of the birth of their daughter. Iduna woke, with a stir and a yawn. Finding that Adgar had left the room, having placed the baby beside her, she reached over, still groggy, weak and unsteady of hand, and pushed the pink satin wrappings aside to look into the face of her baby.  
What she saw caused her to blanche, stiffen and stifle a cry of horror.  
Little Elsa lay there, eyes still closed as if sleeping, golden head lolling back, tiny fists clenched. But every inch of her skin was coated with a sort of white powder, and that powder, in its turn, wore a layer of sparkling grey-white flakes. Iduna could think nothing but that they were flakes of ice. Not an inch of her baby's skin was visible; she could scarcely make out her eyes, nose or lips through the coating.  
"Adgar! Adgar!"  
Adgar came flying into the chamber as Iduna, holding the baby, brushed the last of the powder from her skin with a shaking hand. In an instant he was beside her.  
"What's the matter, my love?"  
Iduna continued to tremble. Adgar attempted to relieve her of Elsa.  
"Let me have her, dearest; you're in no state to hold her. You will drop her."  
Iduna wrenched away. "No!"  
The shouting and crying out had woken Elsa, who opened her great blue eyes, blinked, and, after a moment or two, began to fuss. Yes - she was alive, not lifelessly pale as Iduna had imagined, but as warm and pink as ever, pulsating with life and filled with vigor.  
Iduna's trembling worsened, and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Wordlessly, she surrendered the child to Adgar, who placed her on his knee to calm her, then drew his wife close, pressing her head against his shoulder.  
"What happened here?" he asked again, soft-voiced.  
Iduna struggled to regain control.  
"She was . . . she was lying there - grey, Adgar, grey as lint and death, and - and coated with ice. Oh, I was so afraid."  
Little Elsa's crying had ceased so that now only her mother was weeping. Adgar cupped Iduna's chin in the palm of his hand, turning her face so as to meet her eyes.  
"Grey? Coated with ice? Why on earth -? Iduna, calm down and tell me what took place!"  
"I don't know." The crying had lessened now. Iduna made a handkerchief of her husband's sleeve. "I don't know, Adgar. I only saw it when I woke - ice, grey, flaky ice and white powder - like snow - covering her from head to toe. I saw her and thought that - my God, I don't know what I thought."  
"Iduna, my love," Adgar said gently.  
He intended to offer some words of reassurance, as any husband or wife would under these circumstance. Iduna, however, seemed to hear a rebuke or a note of disapproval in that brief utterance that was not there. It was more likely that the rebuke she heard came from within, and not from Adgar - a rebuke for overreacting, for succumbing to weakness, to foolish hysteria.  
Before she was aware of it, she was donning that old mantle of haughty regality in an effort to conceal all the frailties and the "foolishness" she had allowed her fear to expose. But the donning was hasty and clumsy, and the attempt at haughty regality was less regal than haughty. Her small shoulders squared, she pushed Adgar's sleeve away, and her voice hardened without warning.  
"Who came into this chamber? Someone MUST have entered this chamber."  
She tried to stand, but Adgar caught her by the arm, bringing her to sit beside him once again. It was easy for him to see through this display; he had witnessed a few outbursts like this one over the duration of their courting and marriage. "Iduna! Iduna, you're weak, ill and wearing nothing but a nightgown. You can't go dashing out there! Stop all of this now; you must not upset the baby again. I'll interrogate the guards."  
Iduna sank down onto the bed, much to his relief. As he rose to question the sentries, he handed Elsa to her; she clasped the tiny fair head to her breast.  
Little Elsa gazed up into her mother's pinched, tearstained face with wondering, adoring eyes. Adgar paused en route to the door and managed a tired smile at the sight of his wife, also smiling tremulously as a little hand grasped at a loose lock of brown hair. The pretty dimpled fingers managed to get hold of and close around it after two or three attempts.  
Iduna's smile vanished of a sudden. "Adgar!"  
Adgar, forgetting the matter of the guards for the moment, came to the bed once again. "What is it, my angel?"  
It seemed that Iduna was speechless now, parting her lips, closing them, then parting them again. Adgar leaned in to see for himself what the trouble was.  
And it was there - on that tiny hand, no larger than his thumb, clinging to Iduna's hair as if it were a beloved plaything. The little fingers were coated, albeit very thinly, with white from tip to the knuckles - pure white powder, sparkling beneath the lamplight.  
Adgar stroked Elsa's hand. The powder was as soft to the touch as down and as fine as dust - and it was spreading before Adgar's eyes, threatening to cover her hand entirely.

Elsa looked up at him, smiling that toothless smile, laughing, it seemed, at her father's consternation. Slowly she released the lock of hair, allowing it to fall. As she did so, her tiny hand became a fist, but she allowed it, too, to fall back to rest against her mother.  
After a moment, however, a tiny gust of cold air passed between Iduna and Adgar, accompanied by a flurry of white. The miniature blizzard vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Adgar's nose covered with frost. Nothing else had been touched.  
"Gah!" Adgar sputtered, breaking the silence. He dabbed the frost away with the sleeve that Iduna had not used as a nose-cloth. Elsa laughed again, flashing her gums.  
Iduna took hold of the frost-covered hand, but quickly pulled away, shuddering at the chill. She lifted Elsa's arm by the wrist instead. In vain she tried to stop the forming of the frost, stem the spreading of the white powder up her arm, by rubbing at the skin.  
"Elsa, my baby, what is this? What's happened to you?"  
She gave a little gasp of discomfort when, smiling and cooing, Elsa unclenched her fist and sprayed the crook of mother's arm with ice.  
"Adgar." She forced her voice to remain soft, level and steady. "She is sending ice out through her hands."  
Adgar, kneeling at her feet, took Elsa's other hand into his own. It was warm, and there was no visible trace of grey or white upon it.  
Cautiously, he pried her fingers open, exposing the palm of her hand. Then, because he was not certain what to do otherwise, he tickled it.  
Elsa cooed, gurgled again. When he tickled her a second time, snowflakes sprang forth from the hand that he held.  
"Ice powers." Adgar's voice was scarcely more than a whisper.  
"Ice powers!" Iduna held her baby just a little closer to herself. "Adgar, what - why, I - are you . . .but I've never heard . . ."  
Adgar allowed Elsa to amuse herself by making him a new shirt sleeve of snow. Her belly bobbed up and down with baby mirth.  
"But you have heard of it before, my dear - and so have I."  
"What do you mean?"  
Adgar sat down, cross-legged, upon the carpet. He kneaded his brow, which already seemed to wear lines of weariness.  
"You have heard the story of the Snow Queen, have you not?"  
Iduna's entire forearm was silver-white by this time, as was Elsa's, but she took no notice of that now, so focused was she on Adgar's words. There was a hint of shrillness in her voice, despite her efforts to speak quietly, calmly. "But that story wasn't true - it couldn't have been. There are legends of magic that might contain truth, but there was no such a thing as a Snow Queen! Who has ever heard of two queens in one country, and one of them unknown to almost everyone?"  
"Perhaps she was no true queen. But the story of her power is no less credible than what we are seeing with our own eyes now." Adgar massaged his temples. "Believe me, my dearest, I rub myself, blink my eyes and hope to wake up and find that I've been dreaming all along. There is magic in Arendelle."  
Iduna tried to absorb all that she was seeing, all that Adgar was saying to her. Though outwardly she was calm now, speaking softly and without quavering, she felt as if she would fall senseless, lose the bit of sanity that she possessed, or both, before she could absorb the full weight and meaning of Adgar's words.  
 _Ice powers . . . there is magic in Arendelle._  
Iduna wore a glove of frost now, and Adgar's overcoat was a strange sight, for its torso and its left sleeve were as blue as the day it had been dyed, while its collar and right sleeve were now lint colored. But for baby Elsa, the delight and amusement seemed to have left the game. Mamma and Pappa were tense, white-faced and unsmiling, and they seemed to have forgotten her and her snowflakes and frost altogether. For the third time that day since her entrance into the world, she began to cry.  
"Oh, sweet. Shhhhhh." Iduna began to rock her by swaying to and fro with her own body. She had not been a mother for a day yet, and in spite of all of the mothering books with which she had been gifted and the generous helpings of unsolicited advice she had received in the days preceding Elsa's birth, the shrieking cry of this tiny voice aroused a panic within her that crowded out every bit of wisdom that she might have remembered before. She knew, too, that this was no time to call upon the servants for aid.  
She could only act according to her instincts, cradling Elsa, murmuring to her, cajoling her with the bottle that Adgar passed her in the hopes that she was merely hungry. Elsa continued to wail, ignoring the bottle the first two or three times that it was offered.  
When her mother set the bottle aside and resorted to singing to her, however, she fell silent, much to the surprise of her parents, and studied her mother as if fascinated. It was a playful verse that mothers sang while bouncing a toddling child on the knee.  
"Bake kake søte,  
dyppe den i fløte.  
Først i sukker - så i vann,  
så kommer det en gammal mann -  
som vil kaka prikke  
med ei lita gullstikke.

Bake kake søte,  
dyppe den i fløte,  
Først i sukker - så i smør,  
så blir kaka god og mør.  
Og da kan alle smake  
på den gode kake."

("Bake the cake sweet,  
Dip it in cream.  
First in sugar, then in water,  
Then there comes an old man -  
Who will prick the cake  
With a little gold stick.

"Bake the cake sweet,  
Dip it in cream,  
First in sugar - then in butter  
Then the cake will be good and soft.  
And then everyone can taste  
The good cake.")

Then the song ended, and Iduna smiled at her, in that tender, sad, softly radiant way of hers. Elsa, never having seen anything like it while in the darkness of the womb, could only stare. She did not return the smile yet, but her eyes sparkled, and her small pink mouth formed an O of wonder.  
The bottle was offered to her once again, and she reached for it. Iduna tensed.  
"She's becoming grey again, her arm, as well as her chest - grey with frost. My baby is freezing!"  
Adgar gave Elsa's foot a gentle probing squeeze, assuring himself that she had a pulse. "Angel, she is not freezing. She was as warm as when I first held her when I came after hearing your cry, and she is just as warm now. Elsa will be fine."  
Iduna watched as Elsa nursed the bottle. "But why does she cover herself in frost? It's horrific. I've never heard of anything like it in connection to the Snow Queen."  
Adgar's reply was a lame one, to say the least. "I can't say, edel. For some reason unknown to us, she simply likes to cover herself with frost."  
"What will we do now? What will happen, my love?"  
Adgar ran a finger through Elsa's hair, causing her to stir. "We can only search for more knowledge regarding these ice powers - any information we can find. There's nothing more that we can do."  
He leaned in to kiss the crown of golden locks. Iduna rested her cheek against the top of his head.  
"Then we'll search the libraries." There was a lengthy pause. "And if we find nothing?"  
The thought of this made Adgar feel as if he had aged fifty years. He was terrified, and knew that Iduna was just as frightened, at the thought of any man or woman outside of this chamber learning what they had learned today about their little daughter, for there was no way of knowing how the owner of that knowledge might react.  
 _Supposing that all of the kingdom came to know of the matter and turned against us then - would we have the strength to protect her, our little Elsa Edel?_  
The only thing that Adgar knew with certainty was that this chamber, the room in which Elsa had been born, would never appear the same to him again. Never again would the bright sunlight that drifted in through the parted window curtains shine in the same way it had before, nor would he ever sleep easily again, for the darkness of nighttime would never surround and embrace him and his wife as warmly and comfortingly as in the past.  
"Then we must find someone who has some knowledge of magic - or keep the matter a secret from every living, breathing thing and learn all that we can by observing."  
There was another matter that Adgar felt the need to discuss with his wife, one that weighed almost as heavily on his mind as the matter of the magic. But he would have to broach the subject later, for this time was not at all a good time.


End file.
